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Help us light up the Brush Street viaduct

Piquette Square is a “150-unit apartment project in Detroit to house and care for homeless veterans”. Developed by Southwest Solutions, it is a modern, efficient housing solution that our beloved veterans can utilize to get back on their feet.

There is a viaduct on Brush just north of Piquette Square. Residents of Piquette Square use Brush street to do things like get groceries and go to the bus stop. While their housing is safe and adequate, the route they must take to do their daily errands is decidedly not.

Muggers have been taking advantage of the dark, trash-strewn, unlit corridor along Brush between Piquette and Milwaukee—the kind of people that see easy pickings in vulnerable older people with some money in their pockets.

The Friends of Milwaukee Junction want to improve this corridor and the safety of the residents, and need help. The ideal solution is going off the City grid and going green while at the same time providing bright, well-lit areas for the residents of Piquette Square to safely traverse at night.

AJ O’Neil, a Highland Park businessman, is about to complete a successful Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign to fund a single solar-powered streetlight for Highland Park after DTE repossessed street lighting in the city for unpaid electrical bills. The technology exists to make self-sufficient, safe lighting (and it’s from a Michigan-based company, to boot!). We wouldn’t need nearly as many as the City of Highland Park—we only need to light a small stretch of a single block.

We’re open to ideas. We’re a community organization that relies on the power of collaboration to get things done.

If you are someone (or know someone) who is able to help us out with a viable plan for lighting this one-block stretch of Brush Street without interfacing with the City electrical grid, we’d love to hear from you!